MemorialCare Health System Names Top National Experts to Lead Efforts in Improving the Health and Well Being of Southern California Communities

ORANGE and LOS ANGELES Counties, Calif., July 10, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- MemorialCare Health System named two national experts to lead its efforts in improving the health of communities in Southern California. Helen Macfie, PharmD, Chief Transformation Officer, and Regina Berman, MA, BSN, Vice President of Population Health, will partner with clinicians to enhance patient experiences; raise the quality of care; make access to health care more convenient and less costly; help individuals understand and adopt healthy lifestyles; and improve coordination of care across all settings—from hospitals, physicians' offices and outpatient facilities to care in the home, community and workplace.

Macfie and Berman have received numerous awards and recognition for their national leadership and innovations in advancing health care quality, improving patient outcomes, engaging individuals in their care, bringing care to the most appropriate locations and in the most cost-effective manner and ensuring advances are adopted at every point of care across the continuum.

"We are pleased to have two outstanding health care executives spearhead our critical initiatives in population health management," says Barry Arbuckle, Ph.D., MemorialCare President & CEO. "As Helen Macfie moves into her new executive role and Regina Berman joins us from prominent health care systems, together they will advance MemorialCare's position as a leader, pioneer and innovator in clinical quality, evidence-based medicine and ensure optimal health for the Southland communities we serve."

Macfie has executive responsibility for system transformation and performance improvement for population health, clinical quality, patient safety, risk management, utilization, Lean and patient and family experience initiatives; strategic planning; Value Added Teams; and the Physician Society Clinical Best Practice Teams. She speaks nationally on improving health care strategy, integrating lean principles, performance improvement and patient safety.  She serves on the Institute for Health Care Improvement (IHI) Patient Safety Executive course faculty and on boards of California Hospital Patient Safety Organization, California Hospital Association Hospital Quality Institute and State Quality Committee, California Hospital Assessment and Reporting Task Force (CHART) and several statewide advisory boards and previously served on the national Malcolm S. Baldridge Examiner Panel. She was Senior Vice President for Performance Improvement for nine years at MemorialCare and has received its Living Out Leadership (LOLA) Award. 

She practiced as an acute care pharmacist for 13 years prior to moving into her organizational improvement work spanning the last 20 years. Macfie earned her Doctor of Pharmacy at University of California San Francisco School of Pharmacy with residencies in clinical pharmacy at University of California San Diego and pharmacy administration at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and became a Fellow of the Advisory Board Company (FABC) following completion of a fellowship in Leadership of the Healthcare Enterprise for the 21^st Century.

Berman oversees all aspects of MemorialCare's population health management, bringing more than 20 years of leadership experience in health care performance improvement, quality, safety and knowledge management and in clinical, operational and service excellence. As a national innovator and pioneer in population health, in her role as Executive Director of Performance Improvement Services at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, she led a team responsible for a $22 million, Pursuing Perfection Grant from Robert Woods Johnson Foundation and IHI to pursue transformational health care strategies. These and other national projects represent the foundation for developing Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) across the U.S.

She has served as Chair of New Jersey's State Quality Program, on the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Program Board of Examiners, is a Diplomat of the American Board of Quality Assurance and Utilization Review Physicians and a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality of the National Association for Healthcare Quality. Berman served on the National Quality Forum Executive Institute Advisory Board and Performance Measurement Task Force. She speaks nationally on performance measurement improvement strategies, information management and other topics. A registered nurse, she holds an MA degree from New York University with a concentration in Quality and Delivery of Patient Care Services and BSN/BA from Mount Saint Mary College in New York. Previous positions include Senior Vice President at JPS Health Network in Texas, Director of Medical Management at Mt. Sinai Health System in New York and most recently, Vice President of Quality and Resource Stewardship at Kaiser Permanente in Colorado.

MemorialCare Health System is a not-for-profit Southern California integrated delivery system and pioneer in evidence-based medicine with 200 care sites, 11,400 employees, 2,600 affiliated physicians; six hospitals—Long Beach Memorial, Miller Children's and Women's Hospital Long Beach, Community Hospital Long Beach, Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center in Fountain Valley and Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills and San Clemente; MemorialCare Medical Group; Greater Newport Physicians (GNP); Seaside Health Plan; ambulatory surgery centers; and imaging, outpatient and urgent care facilities. A national pioneer in evidence-based medicine, for the third consecutive year, MemorialCare is listed among 35 employers globally receiving the prestigious Gallup Great Workplace Award.

SOURCE MemorialCare